Confidences
by Adoradork
Summary: It's been a rough night, and all Raphael wants to do is lie in a hot bath and bleed in peace. If only his brothers would stop coming in to talk to him. Why are they doing this? He's not a sympathetic ear. Why can't they just leave him alone? (Sequel to Conversations.)
1. Leonardo

Raphael's body is one big ache. Even his toes hurt, which is ridiculous. Leaning over to turn the tap on to fill the bath, his vision blurs and he nearly goes head-first into the tub. He makes the water as hot as he can stand, then sits on the edge of the tub while it fills and strips off his torn and bloody wraps.

Fresh blood oozes from the scrapes along his arms and there's a big gash on his leg where one of the gang tried to take him out with an iron bar. He grins, because while he feels like pus, they're going to be out for a couple of weeks while broken bones heal and that's another gang off the streets and that makes every ounce of pain worthwhile.

When the tub is full he sinks in. The shock of the hot water on his abused body hits like a sledgehammer and he grips the edge of the tub and lets loose a string of vulgarity. But the hot water does its work and slowly his muscles start to relax. The clear water is going grey from dirt and blood. Well who cares, it's his water. He groans and sinks down until only his nose is above the surface and drifts for a while in a state of somnolent bliss, his mind unravelling as the aches fade away.

The door crashes open, and he jerks up, muscles complaining. Behind him he hears the sound of the toilet seat going up.

"Do you mind?" he snaps.

"Nope." Leo's voice. Bastard. Urine tinkles into the bowl. "I didn't know you were back," says Leo.

Raphael grunts in response to discourage further conversation. He closes his eyes, waiting for Leo to leave him in peace. There's a roar as the toilet flushes. Raph tries to get back to his half-asleep state.

Hands splash in his bathwater. "Wow, this water is pretty dirty."

Raphael's eyes snap open. "Says the guy washing their _toilet_ _hands_ in my bath!"

He lashes out with one hand but Leo ducks out of the way, grabbing Raphael's towel to dry his hands. Raphael glares at him, expecting him to leave, but instead Leo cocks his head and looks down at him.

"Where did you go tonight?"

"Down near the river. Hunted some gang members."

"You okay?"

"I'm fine. Go away."

"Your leg is bleeding."

"Piss _off_."

Leo sits down with his back against the bath. What the hell? Raphael growls to show that he doesn't _want_ company but Leo ignores it. Raph splashes water across the back of Leo's neck.

Leo wipes his neck with the towel, but doesn't react. Raph flops back into the water. He's too tired to drive Leo out. Maybe he'll go away if Raph ignores him enough.

"It was three years ago. Yesterday." Leo's voice is low and quiet.

Raph's just starting to relax again. His guards are down, so he's not thinking when he asks, "What was?"

"Splinter leaving."

Splinter's name goes through him like a knife. Raph finds he is gripping the edge of the bath. The one word that was guaranteed to destroy any mental peace he's gained from a night of violence and a hot bath.

Leo is silent beside him, but Raph can see him twisting the towel in his hands. He grunts in response. "Was it?"

He's trying to sound casual. He knows how long it's been in a vague way, but he isn't counting the days like Leo. He refuses to.

Splinter had taken Karai back to Japan, to show her the village she had been born in, old neighbourhoods where he and Tang Shen had grown up. It was only meant to be six months. Then the messages had started getting further apart. Six months had come and gone. A year. Two years. And then nothing. No word. No news.

"Do you think they're alive?" Leo asks the question none of them have been willing to ask, and it infuriates Raph. If they're alive, why haven't they come home? If they're alive, he gets to be angry at Splinter for abandoning them.

If they're dead, he gets to be angry at Splinter for dying. Grief is an emotion he's not ready to accept. Alive, angry, dead, grief. Either way, they had been abandoned, left behind, fucked over by the man who had been their father.

"I got drunk last night," says Leo.

That concept is frightening in itself; Leo being upset enough to drink. He tries to remember if Leo was in the lair last night. Then he tries to recall if _he'd_ been in the lair last night. Yes, he had, but he hadn't seen Leo.

"I nearly broke my vow."

Raph snarls. "Just do it. Celibacy is stupid."

Leo doesn't respond.

Raph sighs. He knows it matters to Leo. His stupid sacrifice. Family above everything. Raph isn't dumb enough to believe it's about family, or sex, or honour, any of the other reasons Leo gives. Leo's vow is the one thing in his life that he has total control over, and he approaches it with the same focus and iron will that he gives to everything.

It scares Raph a little that he nearly lost that last night.

"Hey." He slaps Leo lightly on the back of the head. Leo turns. "You know he would come home if he could. Splinter would never abandon us if he could help it." The lie slips easily from Raph's lips. He doesn't believe that anymore. But he'll say what he has to say to keep Leo level, balanced. Because they need him, more than they need Splinter, even.

"I know. It's just…" Leo's voice drops to a whisper. "Some days are harder than others."

"Yeah." Raph knows THOSE days. Days when one or more of them are lying in the infirmary, or worse, when they haven't come home when they should. When they don't know where the missing brother is. Those are bad days.

Leo's gaze is distant, his face pinched with worry. There are lines around his eyes. He's fucking nineteen, he shouldn't have lines on his face. Shouldn't go around acting like he's forty, like he's their dad. He wants to scream at Leo _just get over it_ , but that's never worked. He wants them to just...he doesn't know what he wants. He just knows it's not _this_.

There's darkness creeping in the edges of Raphael's vision, the darkness that they have all been fighting off in their own ways. The darkness filled with despair, and fear, the one that threatens to drag them down into hopelessness. Only Raphael is immune. He's been dealing with despair longer.

Okay, maybe it fuels the violence a little. But at least he's channeling his anger into something constructive, not some stupid code of behaviour or crazy amounts of sex or happy-pills like the rest of his brothers.

Leo is hunched over, staring at the floor between his feet. Raph is over it. Over this miserable brother. He winds up and punches him on the arm so hard it rocks Leo.

"Ow."

Raph rests a fake-brotherly hand on Leo's shoulder. "Hey. You know what you should do?"

"What?" Leo's expression is dubious, as if he's not expecting Raph's suggestions to be useful. Well, fine.

"Suck it up, you pussy." Raph surges up, wraps his arm around Leo's chest and drags his head under the water. Leo kicks and struggles but Raph's caught him off guard for once and he's got him in a solid head lock. He holds Leo under long enough to make it clear who has won, then lets him go.

Leo surfaces, coughing and spluttering, and spits out a mouthful of water. "What the hell, Raph." He pulls a face. "I think I swallowed some of that." He lashes out with his hand, sends a tidal wave of water over Raph's face.

Raphael responds in kind. He has the advantage, because most of him is underwater. The bathroom looks like a war zone by the time Leo concedes. He retreats to the other side of the bathroom, shaking the water off. But he's smiling just a little as he calls Raph a _kusottare_.

"Swear in English, you motherfucking whorebag," says Raph with satisfaction.

"You're disgusting."

"At least I know it. Now go away."

"I'm going." He throws the soggy towel at Raphael's head and pulls the door closed behind him.

Raph sinks down in the water. That was better. Maybe he should do that more often. Lay into Leo and remind him that not everything had to be so damn serious all the time. Make him smile more often. He closes his eyes and tries to settle back into his half-doze.

Damn it, now he needs to piss.


	2. Donatello

The water has cooled to something like blood temperature. Raph's reached that strange post-adrenaline state where his body seems to be a separate thing, no longer under his control. He can feel the pains, consciously, if he moves, but if he just lies still in the water, everything is all right.

This is a high he can approve of.

The door opens, and quick footsteps cross the floor. There's the thump and jangle of leather and metal hitting the floor, followed by the hiss of the shower going on.

"Is privacy a foreign word in this place?" he says, but it's a token protest. He's so relaxed he's not even mad.

"Sorry," says Don. "Blew a hose. Transmission fluid all over me."

Raph opens his eyes. Don's under the shower already, scrubbing at a long greenish-black streak down his side. Illegal car mods are their other income stream, but like Raph's underground fighting, it's not a regular wage and it's not reliable. Some weeks they have money to spare. Other times, they barely have enough for two minute noodles.

"I put the speed chip into that Mustang GT but I'm pretty sure the one they sent down isn't going to be compatible with the nitrous oxide system I installed last time-"

Raph tunes Don out. He doesn't mind car talk normally; in fact, he'll often take an evening beer in and sit against the cupboards to watch Don work. But his mind is wandering back to the narrow alley and the gang members. He kind of likes the way the fights look afterwards, when he can piece together where his opponents were, think objectively about his attacks. It's not like watching a movie. The fight is silent in his head, as if he can only remember with his body. The impacts in his memory don't hurt. Even the gash on his leg, played back, lacks the sharp pain of the moment.

When he comes back to the present Don is _still_ talking.

"You talk more than Mikey," Raph says.

But Don's not listening to him either, talking to himself as much as he is talking to Raph. The flow of words stops with the shower, and Raph starts drifting off again.

Something touches his leg and he kicks instinctively, then growls at the dull pain blossoming in his calf. Don is leaning over the edge of the bath, poking at his wound.

"What are you doing?"

"Wondering if that gash needs stitching."

"Leave me alone."

Don, always more receptive to Raph's demands than Leo, dries his hand and picks up his harness. He sits on the lid of the toilet and cleans the leather with his towel. "What's wrong with Leo?"

Raph grunts. "Upset about Splinter."

Don stretches down to get some strong cleaner out of the cupboard. "Any particular reason?"

Raph's not usually one to pick up on tonal cues, but something about Don's voice when he asks makes him look up. Don's gaze is laser-focused on the harness in his lap, but he has that look he gets when he's withholding unpleasant news.

Raph throws out a line, wondering if he wants Don to bite, or whether he'd rather not know. "Apparently yesterday was the three year anniversary of him leaving."

"Yeah, it was."

Of course Don would know too. There's silence for a while, except for the sound of Don wiping gunk off his harness. The smell of fake lavender fills the bathroom. He's using their laundry detergent. It stinks. Raph can't stand it any more. If there's pain coming, he wants it over and done with."Do you think he's alive?"

Don goes still, and Raph's guts do a complicated dance beneath his plastron.

"I'm pretty sure he is."

Raph feels sick, and then angry, and then sick again. "How do you know?"

Don starts rubbing at the harness again, slowly. "I saw a news report from Tohoku, in northern Japan. Apparently a restless spirit has been prowling the streets at night."

"Yeah? And what's that got to do with Splinter?"

"They went to Tohoku. That's why I've been watching the news there. The spirit was said to be tall, furred, brown, with a tail."

"Coincidence." But Don doesn't believe in coincidences. So Splinter was alive. Raph let that thought play out in his mind, let it run to it's natural conclusion. Grief was a foreign emotion. Anger was comforting and familiar.

"Why the hell hasn't he contacted us? What the hell is he doing?" _Why hasn't he come home?_

Don sighs. "I don't know. I guess he's got...stuff to do."

Stuff that was more important than the four of them. "Fuck him," Raph says.

Don doesn't reply, and now Raph recognises the look on his face. It's misery. He's not the only one who feels abandoned. "How long have you known?" he snaps. The words come out savage, when he wanted them to be gentle.

"A while. Since September."

Shit. And he just kept it to himself. It's on the tip of his tongue to demand to know why Don didn't tell them. And then he remembers that September was when Kirby took April out of their reach, and that Don carried both of those things around on his own; April's loss, Splinter's abandonment.

After that he was out of the lair most nights, and Raph has a sudden, blinding moment of comprehension as to why his quiet, shy, nerdy brother might go so far off the rails that he wasn't even in the same county any more.

"Jesus fuck Don." Raph's vocabulary is inadequate to the sympathy he wants to heap on his injured brother.

Don just shrugs.

Raph makes a promise to himself to run defense on his brother more, to keep him closer to home. To maybe get him drunk more often. And then he thinks of another injured brother. "Don't tell Leo."

"No. Not Leo." Don nods his understanding.

Now they share a secret, and it's a black, awful thing. But they have to. Leo's holding on because he believes that Splinter will come back. Everything he does, he holds up to the invisible lens of his father's expectations. They can't tell him that Splinter has left them. Raph is too afraid to discover the brother that might come out of that revelation. Secrecy is all the protection they can give.

Don rinses off his harness and hangs it up to dry. Raph stares at his back, wanting to say something kind, something that will tell Don that he understands, that he wants to make it better, that everything will be all right.

Don pauses at the door. "Come and see me when you're done and I'll stitch that leg."

"Fuck off," says Raph.


End file.
